


City of Delusion

by snovidenie (prettyhowtown)



Category: True Detective
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-17
Updated: 2014-10-27
Packaged: 2018-02-21 11:46:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2467133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettyhowtown/pseuds/snovidenie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ficlets about Cohle set to Muse's City of Delusion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. stay away from me

_“Your mom still alive?”_  
 _“Maybe.”_  
  
Rust didn’t hate his mother despite the indifference in his voice and demeanour.  
  
When even your own mother didn’t want to have anything to do with you, how were you supposed to feel about her?  
  
The girls in school were attracted to his appearance. The things that came out of his mouth, however, well. There was one girl who didn’t run, not immediately, but eventually he wore her patience thin as well. She didn’t leave a person-shaped hole behind, not even a twinge of regret.  
  
He’d expected this outcome, after all, and all the ones that followed the same pattern afterwards.  
  
Then there was Claire.  
  
Then there was Sophia.  
  
And afterwards Rust walked around, carrying a person-shaped hole inside, an insatiable abnormality which wouldn’t allow him to even pretend he was a human being anymore.  
  
Rust was certain its pull would increase until it inverted him - a black hole where revelation would be found.  
  
Then Crash came crawling out of it.  
  
No surprise there, really.  
  



	2. build a fortress and shield your beliefs

_“You must have been a great husband.”_

Her pain and anger break up against his hard lines and sharp angles. Not her fault, not his, either. No response, just desertion. The accusatory gaze tried to follow him, but the truth was it never even touched him.

As he walked, never looking back, he tasted Claire’s laugh – cool, clean and crisp, like Norway in winter – on the tip of his tongue. Claire never shattered against him. Claire grew sharper, challenging him to match her day after day, which he did.

Before Sophia, Claire and Rust were perfect for each other. The little girl softened both Clair and Rust, and for a while they tried on normality.

After Sophia, they shed the skin that never quite fit, only to find that they no longer fit. The little girl had been their temporary vacation from their selves, and during that vacation they’d lost their rhythm.

In the end – inevitably and logically – they sliced each other up beyond recognition, and walked, never looking back.


	3. all your theories turn to dust

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The quote is taken from the deleted Rust and Laurie scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89FObkqroZY

_“I wouldn’t have children with anyone.”_

But Rust had. A long time ago. With Claire.

Neither one of them had wanted a baby. Rust had said it. Claire had said it. And then Claire had brushed their reasonably constructed arguments against the baby away with a careless wave of her hand. So there they were, standing by a cradle surrounded by soft pastels.

Sophia had her father’s eyes and her mother’s scowl. Claire laughed at the frown on the baby’s face, so serious and critical, said their little girl was Rust’s through and through.

“Tell me again how wrong it is, Rustin.”

He traced the frown on his daughter’s forehead and kissed his wife’s smiling mouth, copied it to his own lips. One day it appeared on Sophia’s lips, her parents’ smile, the one nobody else saw, and erased all their doubts and reasonable arguments. 

And for a short, sweet while, Claire and Rust forgot they didn’t want children. 

For a short while, Claire and Rust forgot they were realists.


End file.
